


Off the Grid and On the Menu

by jenna_thorn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, all my personas are burned, defining herself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 21:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3625689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>{Agent} Romanov’s order varied with her hair style or nail color, each taste specific to persona, researched and chosen deliberately and so the corporate lawyer had a very exacting off menu request, and the au pair drank whatever was sweet, and the real estate agent drank tea. But Natasha stood at the menu, blinking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off the Grid and On the Menu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beadslut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beadslut/gifts).



The nature of coffee shops and cafes made them an easy parking spot for surveillance or handoffs. Anyone could sit near anyone for a moment or a minute in Costa or Starbucks or Peet’s. A construction worker, his tee shirt stained in an outline of his safety vest, sitting next to a prim coed drew no attention whatsoever, even if he left a crumpled napkin behind. 

So, Hawkeye and the Black Widow crossed paths in coffeeshops all over the world under a hundred names, none of them their own. Clint always drank coffee, black, no room for cream, no, just coffee, thanks, and was careful to not grumble about the cost for futzin’ coffee, for Chrissake and he always tossed his change in the tip jar. Romanov’s order varied with her hair style or nail color, each taste specific to persona, researched and chosen deliberately and so the corporate lawyer had a very exacting off menu request, and the au pair drank whatever was sweet, and the real estate agent drank tea. But Natasha stood at the menu, blinking. 

“I don’t know what I want,” she said aloud, just to hear the words, to put them in the air and make them real. The barista pulled up a glazed, polite smile with obvious effort. Natasha put her hands on the counter, though they weren’t actually shaking. She took a breath. The menu was, after all, simply variations on a theme, and she knew off the top of her head the top three best-selling products of the chain, including the common allergens and calorie count for each. Tony, like Clint, drank his coffee black, not that he’d step foot in a Starbucks, and Pepper drank hers with cream, no sugar, the opposite of Phil, and she toyed with working her way down the menu in order of other people’s preferences and heard Steve’s wry chuckle, the one he used when something wasn’t funny at all, like an echo in her head. “What’s the seasonal?”

“Caramel Flan Latte.”

“Right, that, then. Venti, please.” As good a place to start as any.

**Author's Note:**

> original prompt: sugar coma starbucks drinks


End file.
